In the early morning hours of Wednesday, Star Trek: The Cruise quietly docked in Cozumel, Mexico. a port home to a vibrant shopping district and offering offers tours allowing visitors to swim with dolphins or snorkel on the coral reefs. As the day excursions wrapped for last call to board the ship in the afternoon fans were greeted with the voice of Kate Mulgrew: Admiral Janeway herself was on board and assuming command of the Star Trek functions—and a resounding applause could be heard from around the ship. With renewed inspiration, the Explorer’s 3,200 passengers sailed on for night four of the floating convention.
We have some highlights from the Wednesdays activities in our latest log.
Picardo hosts opera night
“Star Trek Goes to the Opera” was an event new this year, and is a concept that best shows off what Star Trek: The Cruise focuses on and what makes the trip so special. Robert Picardo, accompanied by a set full of world-class musicians, walked the audience through the various opera numbers sung by his character, The Doctor, on Star Trek: Voyager. Picardo set the tone, talking about how his singing talents have helped his fans connect with music:
“I’m always shocked when a fan in the autograph line says ‘I love your singing’ or ‘I became interested in opera hearing you sing it on Voyager.’ And when you saw in tonight’s opening, we’re always sure that when someone says Star trek influenced them to go into science or technology or engineering… We’re used to hearing that. But how cool is it that Star Trek’s broad humanist appeal influences people to the arts as well? … And if my character singing on Voyager helped even one Star Trek fan to become an opera fan, that makes me really proud.”
Robert Picado with Arturo Chacon-Cruz on Star Trek: The Cruise VIII (Photo: TrekMovie)
But Picardo wasn’t the star of the show: He was actually hosting Arturo Chacon-Cruz, one of the world’s leading operatic tenors. Chacon-Cruz sang many of the selections from Voyager and occasionally joined Picardo in a duet to compare the music as it would be heard in a concert hall to how it would be heard on TV. Arturo joined STTC enthusiastically, as he’s also a Star Trek fan and loves to see how the saga intersects with his own music. As was pointed out, opera came up as a plot point in nearly every Star Trek show.
The pool of talent continued to widen from there. Chacon-Cruz introduced his wife, soprano Venitia-Maria Stelliou. She and Picardo then performed a famous duet piece, the Papageno & Papagena duet from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Another surprise female vocalist was then introduced: Jen Usellis, who walked onto the stage in full Klingon Pop Warrior attire. Usellis has been a fan favorite at talent shows for many years, but since her last appearance, she’s also become the Klingon Language Expert for Star Trek: Prodigy. She performed an original Klingon composition that would have softened even Worf’s heart.
Jen Usellis on Star Trek: The Cruise VIII (Photo: TrekMovie)
Before the evening’s end, the audience was treated to The Doctor’s musical efforts from Voyager’s “The Swarm” and “Virtuoso,” and Picardo and Chacon-Cruz even attempted to convert to opera the “buried alive” scene from Star Trek II. The performance really hit home when Picardo reminded us that opera was woven into the opening of The Original Series, and Stelliou performed that solo while Picardo sang the unused lyrics, with a few of his own twists:
Beyond the rim of the star-light,
My love is wand’ring in star-flight,
I knows he’ll find in star-clustered reaches.
Love, strange love an opera star teaches!
I know her journey ends never.
Her star trek will go live forever.But tell her while she wanders her starry sea–
Remember, remember me.
Venitia-Maria Stelliou, Arturo Chacon-Cruz and Robert Picardo on Star Trek: The Cruise VIII (Photo: TrekMovie)
The night sky
In a new favorite activity introduced last year, Federation Science Advisor Dr. Erin Macdonald has been hosting on-deck astronomy tours titled “This Week In the Night Sky”. Given that STTC is a ship full of fans tracking fictional space voyages, it stands to reason they’d be equally interested in the real stars above their heads. For these events, Dr. Macdonald brings a crowd up to one of the tallest outside observation decks and not only lays out the stars and constellations, but digs into the science of what types of stars (or planets, or galaxies) they are, what we know about them, and what tools were used to gather that data.
(Dr. Macdonald gives a preview PowerPoint beforehand in a theater in the daytime, giving extra help to those who are very new to astronomy or simply have differing visual abilities.)
Holodeck malfunction
The passengers might have joined the voyage to celebrate Star Trek, but the holodeck malfunction-themed evening gave everyone a chance to incorporate any of their other interests. It was an evening designed to bring out make everyone’s cosplay game a little extra. Some created alternative versions of established Star Trek characters, others mashed up other sci-fi franchises with Trek, usually with hilarious results.
Day 4 cosplay on Star Trek: The Cruise (Photo: TrekMovie)
A particular favorite was Gizmo from the movie Gremlins as a USS Cerritos crew member—and the unknown cosplayer remained fully in character while posing for photos.
Day 4 cosplay on Star Trek: The Cruise (Photo: TrekMovie)
There were other fun mashups. It was also perfectly acceptable to simply lift a full cosplay from a wholly different franchise in the event someone had a perfect superhero or stormtrooper outfit that they wanted to show off.
Day 4 cosplay on Star Trek: The Cruise (Photo: TrekMovie)
Cozumel photos
View of Cozumel from the ship on Star Trek: The Cruise (Photo: TrekMovie)
Unknown local alien seems friendly (Photo: TrekMovie)
Tlachtli hoops – from a game historically played sometimes with human heads – festively adorn the town (Photo: TrekMovie)
Margaritaville joins the Federation (Photo: TrekMovie)
More cruising
The Explorer of the Seas departed Cozumel in the afternoon, headed toward Belize City, Belize. Check back for more updates. And if you missed them, check out:
